If any of you have read some of my previous posts, you may have gathered I'm pretty much just a 1st edition and Gift edition collector. The only S/L I (will) have is Blockade Billy.

My query is in regard to proof copies, as I gather these are very collectable for obvious reasons.

The question I have is, are proof copies often different at all from the final publication? I have never read a proof, but it seems to me they may be different from the final edition? if so, are they often very different? or are they usually a fair representation of the final story?

Just curious, as I'm starting to consider collecting these, but am more interested if they are worth reading for a different view point than the regular edition.

The text of most proofs are very similar if not identical to the finished product. There are some exceptions to this, but they are very few. Of course, proofs are in (usually) a trade-paperback size format with little or no cover art. They do not contain any interior illustrations.

The ones that differ from the finished product are usually considered "manuscript proofs" (they are usually 8.5"x11"), such as this:

And one of the pages, with corrections:

Most proofs do NOT contain these corrections.

Only a few editions have issued manuscript proofs, such as Misery, Desperation, The Regulators, etc.

A while ago I wrote an article about collecting King proofs for the book collecting site Hyraxia. They recently changed their formats, so the pictures I included do not show up, but here's the address of the article: